At LinkedGov we’re very pleased to have George Osborne reaffirm the government’s commitment to and backing of open public data. With mentions of hackcamps, public apps and the power of transparency in this morning’s speech by the Chancellor, the Treasury is demonstrating an appreciation for linked government data.

Underscoring the wisdom of crowds approach the Chancellor’s announcement about the recruitment of Beth Noveck to forward this agenda will add renewed focus to LinkedGov’s work. Beth Noveck’s work on public participation and collaboration is both well known and well regarded and we are excited to welcome her to our community.

It’s not yet clear whether Beth will be joining the Treasury, Cabinet Office or No 10 (or another dept) in her work but we look forward to what she’s bringing to the UK.

LinkedGov had its first hack camp last weekend (April 9th and 10th) in Shoreditch, organised with the fantastic help of Geeks of London. ‘Keep Calm and Hack On’ was a roaring success, may thanks to all of you who heeded our call to ‘Enlist for Victory!’

Over the weekend 19 hacks were submitted, and some mighty good hacks they were. Here are the prize winners:

The EU tariff dataset/API and Foreign & Commonwealth Office travel advice API seem to have been particular favourites to hack with. If you have any requests for public data that we can help facilitate please get in touch!

As the sun rises over London this morning all we’re thinking about is ‘Keep Calm and Hack On,’ the first Hack Day for LinkedGov. And it’s not just us with open data hack camps on our mind. A couple of senior people were good enough to share their thoughts and give support to this weekend. For which we are very grateful.

Francis Maude, Minister for Cabinet Office:

“Our ambition is to make the UK government the most transparent in the world and through this to help stimulate economic growth and build the Big Society. Critical to us in achieving our aims is opening up government data so that users can use it, for example by providing the public with detailed information about crime in their neighbourhoods through the police.uk website. The number of hits to this site now stands at over 410 million since launch. Events like this weekend help us to explore innovative approaches with data and build on the momentum that has already been created behind the government’s transparency agenda.”

Dr Nick Appleyard, Head of Digital at the Technology Strategy Board.

“We in the Technology Strategy Board have been very pleased to have worked closely with the LinkedGov team, and to have been able to contribute to bringing things to this point. We see great potential value in data that is freely available to developers, as data will be the lifeblood of future digital services and of informed decision-making across all walks of life. But the real value remains to be clearly demonstrated: we need more examples of success. The UK’s world-leading public sector open data movement gives us a head start, and there’s now an unparalleled opportunity for UK’s hackers to prove what such data can do. We’re therefore very excited to see what the HackCamp will come up with.”

Our thanks to Francis and Nick for their vocal support. All the best to everyone at the hack camp today, Keep Calm and Hack On!

Following a very kind shout out from the Guardian’s Charles Arthur we are conscious there will be expressions of interests for more tickets, which have unfortunately sold out.

However, there is a wait list for returned tickets (on EventBrite) where you can register your interest.

If you do want to come and have not been able to get a ticket please do register on the waitlist for potential returns. Equally if you have a ticket and can no longer make it please email Geeks of London and your ticket will be reallocated.